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Salem's Adventures in Darkfall: Episode Two
SalemPhoenix
Member Posts: 47
First and foremost, for those yet to read the Prologue and Episode One, I'd advise you to do so!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/268193
Well it certainly has been a rough few days in Darkfall. After getting to grips with the basics, practicing some fast fingered action-bar switching and learning my way around, I decided to restart with my new knowledge and roll a Mirdain (An Elf essentially). What took me a good many hours on my first character was far quicker this time around and I quickly surpassed where I left my human. However, this move was perhaps a mistake.
Monkfield seemed rather quiet, but for a few other newbies around (who if you remember, still flicked on my paranoia switch causing me to leg it back to town). However, the Mirdain starting areas were slightly busier. I was out, completely naked and ready to kill my four goblins, when I was jumped by an angry dwarf who began pelting arrows into my back from about 4 feet away. I had nothing on me, but also no intention of dying so I ran back to the starting town. After a few minutes of me watching him, he ran off to grief someone else.
Not long after this I joined a rather large clan who welcomed me with open arms... that is, when I managed to figure out how to speak in the clan chat. (It's /Say_clan for those still wondering and once the window is open you need only have the tab selected when you type). They gave me a few tips but I had no intention of leaving the starting area until I had gathered all I could, knowledge-wise and resource-wise. My mistake was doing this on a very busy friday night. This did open my eyes up to a huge gaping flaw in the alignment system, at least what I had experienced of it anyway...
Essentially, you kill a blue named character, you get tagged red and you can wave goodbye to visiting an npc city anytime soon unless you are some kind of masochist who likes to be killed continually. But, if you attack them but then stop, you are marked as a rogue (which is grey) for what seemed like a very very short time. You see, I was back out killing Goblins only to see some fully armoured, un-clanned player with a particularly apt name (of which I of course, won't mention). Well he didn't want competition so decided to run infront of my magic attack, turning me grey so he could freely smack my naked self down to the ground. Well, this of course failed on account of my being grey lasting all of a few seconds, he did leave me with a plan for vengeance. I decided to hide behind a tree with what little health I had left, waiting for the perfect time to let him kill me. Yep, I was going to let him kill me.
I watched him kill a few goblins before he ran just the other side of the tree behind which I hid, still unaware of my presence. I heard the melee sounds and ran out infront of him... *Thwack*, I died. He however, was now labelled red. He was without a clan in a busy area. Needless to say he was jumped by a small group of newbies whom he had obviously also griefed beforehand. This didnt feel much like a victory though... idiocy on his part perhaps, failure as a real griefer, but not a victory for me.
I headed to another goblin spawn only to find another character with a matching first name but different last name, these two obviously knew each other. He tried the same thing, he hit me to make me hit him back, so he could kill me freely. Of course I was not having this. I decided instead, to torture this guy by standing infront of every mob he tried to kill until he eventually starting cursing at me. This did reveal that this wasnt a regular griefer, but perhaps an immature one at that, judging from the "leet" speak he spurted. Still, I had found a short term way to annoy him, but this didnt cover up the problem that is the 'rogue' system.
I can't think of a better way this system could work, but I do know that in it's current state, it is open to the abuse as mentioned above. I like the challenge of FFA PvP but not when the system can be abused so the original attacker can remain in a positive alignment and yet kill the innocent player. I know I know, I can hear the cried from the veterans of 'This isn't a carebear game!', but a working and polished alignment system is at it's core, a way to prevent anarchy, otherwise it simply becomes a frag-fest.
Following this, I decided I would go on an adventure into the wilderness and away from the now bustling starting area. I cant go into much detail on the journey because it was quiet, though I did stay away from the roads and crouch down at the sign of any Deer or Fox that ran by, just in case. At this point my partner (who is not a gamer in any sense of the word) decided to come and watch me play for a bit.
'What's that down there?' She asked me, pointing at a swamp with tree branches intwined, 'You should go swim in it and see what happens.'
Realising she was unaware of how easy it is to die in this game at the early stages, I had to man-up so to the swamp I went. I jumped in and had a swim, my partner was satisfied and decided to fire up her NDS so I happily turned to exit the swamp. I saw two very very skinny legs infront of me, so skinny in fact, they were bones.
'Damn you!' I said to her as I looked up to see a giant skeleton smash down a sword on my face. I swam as fast as I could but alas, it wasn't fast enough and sure enough, my exploration ended there. I decided it was high time I left this starter zone I had been ported back to and head to one of my Clan's holdings...
Unfortunatley I had to leave it there for the evening. But I did have a few new opinions about the game as I delved deeper into it. The starter zones i experienced are very individual, yet the surrounding area's are similar but for a few lakes and trees spread differently, but this is of course a good thing. A few veteran players seemed to ignore us newbies completely, but the ones who did actively hunt us down appeared to die rather quickly when faced with someone of equal standing, nothing new here then! What struck me the most is that, despite it's flaws, it does have a fair amount of polish so far. The Race Alliance chat was concerned with things that did need work in the game and I had to agree with a couple. The interface could use some polishing, it works of course, but it doesnt feel as smooth as I think it could. Of course, the alignment system also needs some tweaks in my opinion, it seemed many in-game felt the same way too.
All-in-all, I am enjoying the experience, even if so far it has been very fun and very infuriating at times. My next aim is to hit my clan city, work on some crafting and head out into the wilderness for another adventure.
In the meantime, don't gank the newb!
Salem
edit--- apologies for any spelling grammatical errors, unfortunatley I don't have a great deal of time in which to proof read this, nor do I have an editor to do the work for me ;-)
Comments
Excellent write-up Salem, enjoyed reading it with my morning coffee
Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences.
Hehehe.....so you've discovered the.....flaws.....in the rogue system I see......very nice.
Having intimate knowledge of this system will certainly help you in the long run.
I personally try to avoid the elflands as much as possible....they are a cess-pool of griefers and PKs. Our alliance has a few holdings there, and they are CONSTANTLY having issues with reds.
Looking forward to the next chapter!
Edit: can't freakin' spell....
Good write-up Salem, looking fwd to the next installment.
Yup I made a similar mistake, at 3am. I hit back apparently right after he turned blue, and i got marked red.
Much to my surprise, discovered i couldnt go anywhere without being a target, especially towers. So about 2 hours later, i reached the human starter area, and MAINTENANCE> WOOT.
Well, I woke up this morning, got lucky, spotted 2 humans low on health, killed em, ganked em, and I was back to blue. Yay.
This is as good a piece of advice as 'Bank often' and I would certainly push other newbies to avoid there. If they *must* make a Mirdain character, do so late at night and run it to a different starting zone. It'll save a great deal of time in the long run.
Salem
edit- quoted the wrong part, *slaps forehead*, the quote was intended to be about the elf areas being full of gankers.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
great write ups
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...
Keep it rollin. I just started Friday and am noticing a lot of similarities in our experiences. Only thing different for me is I have not joined a clan yet (probably should soon).
I have gotten much smarter in where I camp out. I've learned its best to find that spawn thats further and out of the way, mainly because there is a less chance of getting ganked - although the handoff is IF someone DOES come by, it could get messy.
I just started trying to work trolls, but my issue is they usually spawn 2-3 at a time and its kickin my butt. I think I may need to go back to kobolds or goblins (I need to do title quests anyway). The other issue is I am just strugglin to get gear.
But, I must say, its nice to actually have problems to work through rather than my time in WoW only a week ago where me and a budwould run dungeons and id pull 20-25 mobs and we'd handle it easily. Just silly.
Nice read and just about everyone agrees that the alignment system sux in some way or another but for the life of me I can't think of a better way,
" It has been said that the alignment system is the worst form of player government except all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill
at the moment I kind of agree with that, it sux but the others sux harder
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
We can only hope AV will rewamp the aligement system in 2010 : )
But what about the dragon? Not seen it yet?
This is a great write-up!
Some other thing to watch out for in the way of grief; if you gather ore, herbs or wood a player can run into the back of you or cast debuff spells on you thus causing you to stop gathering. Also I was in Flaming Skulls (Orc Capital) and had a guy using some spell to push me into the lava to try to kill me. He actually was able to push and pull with these spells.
Why are debuffs or aggressive spells not construed as aggressive?
Because Aventurine missed it and it is a bug or worse they think it is all right.